Mongolian opposition 'bought election success with booze'

By Richard Spencer in Beijing

12:01AM BST 29 Jun 2004

The governing party in Mongolia yesterday accused the opposition of bribing voters with alcohol after a shock defeat in parliamentary elections.

Despite almost total control over the political system, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP) lost its majority in the Great Hural, or parliament, winning just 36 of 76 seats, according to predictions with most of the seats counted. Previously it had 72.

Its principal opponents, the Motherland Democratic Coalition, also won 36, leaving the balance of power with four MPs from minor parties.

The prime minister, Nambariin Enkhbayar, said he would lodge a protest, alleging that the opposition had moved people to swing constituencies, bought votes and supplied voters with alcohol.

"I have a lot of information on embezzlement . . . some candidates bought the votes," he said. "We must put an end to the fraud. The result is simply impossible."

The election was the fifth since Mongolia broke free from the Soviet Union in 1990 and declared itself a democracy. The MPRP, the ruling Moscow-backed communist party, transformed itself into a social democratic party with Mr Enkhbayar, a poet educated at Leeds University, modelling himself on Tony Blair.

What may have swung voters was a promise by the coalition to pay all children a monthly stipend of 10,000 togrog (£4.70), a large sum in a country with an average income of £250 a year.

Turn-out was impressive, given that a quarter of Mongolia's 2.7 million people are nomadic and that in a country twice the size of France many had to travel long distances on horse-back to reach a polling station. Turn-out was an estimated 77 per cent.